Hello my friends!

I'm Mr.Gubba don't you know! I'm related very closely to... well anyway I've got a bit of an apology to make about my column-type-page-thing. You see, I was intending to pedal across suburban areas of North-west England backwards on a 1940s unicycle, wearing my trademark mac and hat, reporting on the strange types of people you tend to find there. Men with beards are a prime example, although I must stress that limping men with beards and a Morrison's carrier bag chanting "I'm a gonna get yer" must be avoided at all times!

So why did I fail, I hear you ask?

Well, it all started not so long ago, in the Bowerham area of Lancaster. I was feeling good as I took out my unicycle, polished the metal bits....(which didn't take long as it's a 1940s unicycle and is made largely of MDF due to the need to use the metal for wartime things, and so the only metal bits are two slightly rusty screws - named Don and Crank for posterity) ...when a small man of Welsh appearance approached me with tales of gold, pirates and adventures. He showed me a map of an island in the Caribbean, where there were said to be millions to be made in buried treasure. This was the break I had been waiting for! However, just as I was about to grab my mac and hat and pedal furiously down the road with him, he asked if I could watch his pet elephant for him. "Can you tame elephants?" I asked, before I saw that his pet "elephant" consisted of a dead squirrel tied to an old rope using duck tape. It did seem to have tusks though, and this obviously confused me for several days afterwards.

I bid the man goodbye, as he was driven away in the back of a police car, and went back to my unicycle. It had gone. I found, where it had been, a feather off a Canada Goose. With a decisive piece of evidence such as this, I immediately set off for Canada. Three months I spent searching for my lovely unicycle, before my good wife sent an unemployed water-skier (Mr.Shaw of Heysham) to track me down and tell me that I had put the unicycle in the garage, forgotten of its whereabouts and foolishly set out on a wild Goose-chase (excuse the pun?!) to Canada. All was not lost however, as I did find a Canada Goose, albeit a dead and decaying one near Vancouver.

So, that is why I have not made my report. I apologise sincerely.

However, if you know of any Canada Geese, men with tamed elephants (not dead squirrels) or 1940s unicycles, please drop me an e-mail at the following address: